The Conversation

Synopsis

Harry Caul is an invader of privacy. The best in the business.

Surveillance expert Harry Caul is hired by a mysterious client's brusque aide to tail a young couple. Tracking the pair through San Francisco's Union Square, Caul and his associate Stan manage to record a cryptic conversation between them. Tormented by memories of a previous case that ended badly, Caul becomes obsessed with the resulting tape, trying to determine if the couple are in danger.

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It’s one thing to be living alone in your twenties. It’s an entirely different situation when you’re forty-two, overly paranoid, and almost completely friendless. Harry Caul (whose name probably has more significance than its resemblance to the word call) is a surveillance man, a professional eavesdropper who quiets his bouts of conscience by going to confession and abstaining from taking the Lord’s name in vain. The Conversation follows him furtively, even intrusively, as he nears a mental breakdown after realizing that his work may have yet again become the catalyst to a murder.

I’m not afraid of death. I am afraid of murder.

Harry wouldn’t like us following him around like this. Coppola constantly makes us aware of our intrusion…

Made in-between the epic and sprawling Godfather saga, The Conversation is a far smaller affair from Coppola but no less fascinating. In fact this intimate character study wrapped up in a conspiracy thriller veneer may well be my favourite Francis Ford Coppola film which is high praise indeed. The ever reliable Gene Hackman stars as Harry Caul, a private (in more ways than one) surveillance expert who, in a paranoid crisis of conscience, believes the lives of his latest marks may be in danger.

The Conversation is a film steeped in the paranoia of the times, from the Watergate scandal to the uncertainty of the Cold War, the ‘70s was a period of suspicion and fear. Harry is a fascinating…

Popeye Doyle caught in a world of mother fucking paranoia. A KISS-esque mime. Super-high-tech listening devices. 2-way glass windows are the shit. A very good guess. Fuckin' jazzy-jazz. A bum on a park bench. A payphone. So-beautiful-so-relaxing-so-fuckin'-gorgeous piano music. Lying about your age. A game of 21 questions. Holy fuckin' Han Solo! Elevator music. Walking in circles. Stan is the fuckin' man. A confession. A 13" television. Super 8mm cameras. A convention that is so fuckin' awesome it makes Comic-Con look like a Bronies meet-and-greet. Telephone operators are not very helpful. Indiana Jones's smirk. Guys read Dear Abby? Extreme flirtation. A badass moped straight outta Grand Theft Auto. Princess telephones. Bugging a bugger. What can you buy with 1500 beans?…

I could probably only count on one hand the number of performances I find better than Gene Hackman's in The Conversation. Total, sustained alienation pervaded by frustration and guilt of profession, all internalized and instead seen through a drooping stance, an elongated eye-to-eye encounter with a pen placed in his front suit pocket, a wandering complexion. Harry's dream is so very important because it's the only moment where he truly speaks to another human being, and yet it isn't fueled by compassion but by the bubbling guilt under the surface, only seen in compositions manipulated via negative space. Its main jump scare is one of the best, too.

If you put a couple of masterpieces to your name there's always the risk that your lesser known work doesn't get the attention it deserves. This is most definitely the case with Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation.

This is a fantastic, paranoia induced thriller. The opening three minutes betray a filmmaker bursting at the seams with confidence. That one take is a thing of beauty. The camera slowly makes its way to our protagonist, the amazing Gene Hackman (whom I greatly miss in my films these days). He is surveying the titular conversation here, an opening scene bristling with ideas, an amalgamation of sight and sound bordering on…

The Conversation sits at the top of the many paranoia based 70's thrillers, due to the combination of its insecure subject matter, a compelling performance from Gene Hackman and masterful direction from Francis Ford Coppola, who at the time was well on the road to making four pieces of cinematic history.

It has maintained its relevancy all these years later due to the way the film looks at privacy and its connection to ourselves. Most of the other conspiracy stories focused their eyes upon political figures with grand suggestions of corruption at the highest level. Although the job that pushes Harry Caul over the edge is funded by a powerful business man the intimate nature…

- feels like a fictional biopic of someone who spends his life observing but never really engaging, and the kind of existential isolation and anxiety that produces. which is something i can relate to quite a bit, unfortunately. Hackman does a wonderful job embodying the icy, withdrawn and continuously discomforted demeanor of Harry Caul.

- Harry is extremely adamant about not allowing an ounce of vulnerability, not letting anyone know who he is, averse to any real personal growth. he's an adult who never opened himself, so to speak. only adapted and reinforced his emotional armor as much as he reasonably could. and he's tormented by guilt. again, i relate. a lot.

This was a film for sure. I was getting some Blow-Up and Blow Out vibes from this movie for sure. There were moments in this movie where I was like where are we going here? Eventually in the end everything came together and I’m actually surprised at the end result. Not the thriller I thought it would be, but I give the movie a lot of props for it nuanced aspects. Also young Harrison Ford caught me by surprise when he showed up in the movie.

Recently rewatched this, and I liked it even more than the first time. It does such a good job portraying loneliness and the resulting insecurity, anxiety and even paranoia. I love the theme and the score in general. It really elevates the movie and gives it a beautifully sad atmosphere. That doesn't mean that the visuals aren't great of course, it's Coppola after all. Many great details and creative decisions in the visuals.